Man shot to death by CHP after Oakland chase

Updated 6:25 pm, Tuesday, January 21, 2014

California Highway Patrol officers shot and killed a man in East Oakland early Tuesday at the end of a car chase, authorities said.

The incident began about 2:45 a.m. when two CHP officers in a patrol cruiser spotted a BMW X5 sport utility vehicle without license plates on High Street south of Interstate 580 and tried to pull it over, authorities said. The SUV turned out to have been stolen, police said.

The driver, later identified as 19-year-old Antonio Mestas of Oakland, refused to stop and led the officers on a chase through city streets, authorities said. The pursuit ended when the driver crashed into two parked cars on East 15th Street, a dead-end street east of 57th Avenue, said Officer Johnna Watson, an Oakland police spokeswoman.

Mestas had a loaded gun and ran from the car, Watson said. A confrontation ensued, she said, and both officers opened fire.

ShotSpotter, the city's gunfire-detection system, recorded seven shots. Police did not say whether the suspect had fired any of the shots.

CHP officers performed CPR on Mestas, but he died at the scene.

The shooting is under investigation by the CHP, Oakland police and the Alameda County district attorney's office. The names of the CHP officers were withheld.

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